Mattiacci 'strongly believes' in Kimi

Ferrari boss Marco Mattiacci says he "strongly believes" in Kimi Raikkonen and is confident the Finn's results will improve soon.

Raikkonen's return to Ferrari has been underwhelming, with just 39 points in the first 12 races of the season. In Belgium he scored his best result of the year, with a fourth place finish, and Mattiacci has compared him to a football striker struggling to find his feet at a new club.

"I see this like when you hire a great striker in football and for the first six, seven matches they are not striking and you are waiting and then suddenly they will do an amazing season," he told Sky Sports. "I think Kimi, we have seen in Hungary, we have seen in [Belgium] we have seen he is an extremely talented driver.

"I don't think we did an excellent job in putting him in condition to express the best of him. For sure, he has been suffering a little bit the car that we have for his driving style that he has, but I think it's a combination of factors that didn't bring him in the top five, six drivers. But I strongly believe in Kimi."

Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, has scored the lion's share of Ferrari's points this year, but is believed to be on McLaren's radar for a move back to the British team. Mattiacci said he is only concerned with giving Alonso the best car possible and is not worried about keeping his driver happy in other ways.

"I don't have to keep Fernando Alonso happy. We are not here to look for happiness; we are here to look for the fastest cars.

"He's not an employee, he's a talent. Nobody in my team is an employee, we are all talent and first of all human beings with a great passion. I don't believe in classifying people like Fernando, anybody in the team, as an employee."